Wikipedia:Bible verses/Survey

 This page is an archive of the survey discussing the merits of the situation described below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this survey's talk page or WikiProject Bible). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the survey was remove/do not add the source-text of the chapter from/into the articles. This was supported by 70% of those not abstaining, and 65% of the total, which is regarded as sufficient consensus on VFD.

The exact vote breakdown is (percentages rounded)
 * Include x 11 (28% of total, 30% of include/remove votes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 * Remove x 25 (65% of total, 70% of include/remove votes)
 * Abstain x 3 (8% of total)

There were 39 votes in total, 36 of which did not abstain. 07:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

This is a poll to determine whether articles should be allowed to contain the entire text of a whole bible chapter or not.

It should be taken into consideration that the text is already present in numerous translations at Wikisource, as well as several external websites.

For example, Matthew 1, Matthew 2, Matthew 3, Matthew 4, Matthew 5, John 15, and John 20, are the subject of an edit war over whether the entire text of the chapters (King James Version) should be included, or just external/wikisource links.

This poll will end at 04:00 (UTC) on 22nd July 2005.

Include

 * 1) Too literal interpreation of the rules. While I dont agree with having every 3-line bible verse have its own Wikipedia article, I dont agree that using a rule technicality is the way to go about things. For example the Cædmon's Hymn is 9-lines long, it is the oldest surviving piece of written literature in the (Old) English Language. Should we exclude it from Wikipedia based on some technicality of a rule? Rediculous. Stbalbach 9 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
 * This isn't about 3 line verses. This is about articles on the entire chapter (e.g. Matthew 1) containing the entire chapter. Note that this also has NPOV issues about which version of the text do you use - if you use more than one, it becomes huge in proportion to the remainder of the text.
 * I see what your saying. I think the way it's structured, with seperate aritcles for every verse, you almost have to have a top-level article that shows things in context. It's a nice layout and would be exactly what you would want in an annotated book, which is probably where all this material really belongs, in part because as you say, POV issues. The more I look at this, the more Im leaning towards Transwiki to Wikibooks ("Annotated King James" or whatever), but would like to see what others have to say further. Stbalbach 20:17, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Judgement should be used. If the article is dominated by the quoted material, then there's no point.  If the article is substantial enough that the quoted chapter is only a small portion, then the full text should be included. Samw 01:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) I don't think there's anything wrong with including it. Similar to the above comments, I think that good judgement is most important in such situations.  JYolkowski // talk 20:05, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) I read the Matthew articles and I was astonished by their depth. Therefore I vote Include. The explanation given in the articles needs the full text of the verses. And, in my opinion, it would even be advisable to include the vulgate latin text, so that one can compare the English text with the Latin text for a full understanding. JoJan 20:32, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Include. DMTsurel 13:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Reading the Matthew articles has convinced me that it is quite reasonable to follow the article itself with source text. Acegikmo1 22:38, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) Reasonable source inclusion, of which these articles are an example, seems appropriate. Not sure, however, what this is intended to accomplish. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:45, 2005 July 12 (UTC)
 * 7) Include whatever text is necessary for the article to make sense. Trying to regulate the exact amount of text acceptable is just instruction creep. Uppland 07:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) Include concurr with Uppland. The article should contain as much bible text as is needed. IMHO every bible verse is encyclopedic so this whole argument is moot. Klonimus 04:36, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) Include as much text as is needed for the article. DJ Clayworth 21:05, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, they can. Many times the entire chapter is useful, and when it is not, a proportion-of-article rule is too instruction creepy. NatusRoma 04:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Only include if less than 1/3 of the article

 * Imho, this strict metric, and the two below, are not a good idea per instruction creep. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 09:13, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Remove

 * 1)      9 July 2005 18:13 (UTC)
 * 2) Get rid of them completely. Source text belong to Wikisource; on here, they only bloat the article immensely, make it difficult to read, and present NPOV issues if you only present one particular translation. -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 20:21, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) I agree with Schnee. — Bcat (talk | email) 20:40, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) As Schnee says. --Carnildo 21:39, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) $ --Alterego 22:19, July 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) The entries should be removed if they are not encyclopedic: that is reflecting their importance (reference) to culture (e.g., in literature), pointing to the varied sources, translations, and their interpretations, etc. Source text should support such prose but otherwise appear elsewhere. (Note, this is implicitly a "remove if not a minor portion but I couldn't decide on a specific fraction to vote on.) --Reagle 00:50, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) Move it to Wikisource. Gwk 19:27, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) Wikisource. 12.46.6.70 21:59, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) Wikisource. If a small amount of quoted text is relevant, it can be quoted. Entire chapters are not appropriate for wikipedia. Alex.tan 01:40, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * 10) Agree with Schnee and with Alex.tan. All the source text is already on Wikisource and can easily be linked externally if there's a reason to refer to anything longer than one sentence.  Barno 14:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 11) Remove per Alex.tan. KissL 15:31, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 12) Remove. --mav 02:17, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 13) Link to Wikisource. -- M e r o v i n g i a n  (t) (c) 06:58, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * 14) Wikisource. This is the consensus about including source text in general - we shouldn't even be having this debate. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 11:30, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * 15) Wikisource. In terms of quotations, I don't see why the Bible should be any different from any other text. Quoting an entire chapter of something is very seldom good writing anyhow. Lord Bob 17:15, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * 16) Once more, that's what Wikisource is for. The bible is a source text. And as a side point, it's really not comprehensive to create a separate article on each verse, as is sometimes done. It makes for better reading if they're put together. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 09:13, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * 17) Not whole chapters- one or more verses may be necessary (important differences in translation, etc), but not the whole chapter- there's Wikisource, the Bible Gateway, etc, etc. --G Rutter 19:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 18) Only very brief pertinent citations of a few verses (not more than from 3 to 6 or so) if needed should be allowed, but most certainly NOT entire chapters. Links to original Biblical sources both inside and outside of Wikipedia are enough. Why on Earth would anyone want to stick in an entire chapter in an article??? Makes no sense at all. IZAK 05:28, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 19) Wikisource. Noisy | Talk 10:41, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * 20) a very few short and releveant verses, or a small number of parts of a small number of longer verses are ok. Anything longer than that beongs on Wikisource. Thryduulf 11:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 21) Concur with Alex.tan, IZAK, Thryduulf, etc.  Tomer TALK  21:02, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * 22) Remove. Jayjg (talk)  21:09, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 23) Remove. Quoting the entire long passage is not good writing. No Account 21:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 24) I think there should be a policy one way or the other. Appealing to better judgement doesn't translate to the same outcome for other uses. If authors are allowed to quote in full, then inevitably all Chapters will be quoted in full. I disagree with some above in that I do think this is convenient. However, there is a minor NPOV question with reguard to inclusion. In fact differences between biblical versions should be discussed at times. I personally prefer more modern versions anyways. In my opinion, it would actually be better to provide a link to Wikisource, which should be developed as well as or even superior to BibleGateway, for instance allowing arbitrary links to consecutive verses. Davilla 16:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 25) Remove.  Having examined the articles in question, I don't see what value is added by including the entire source text; in fact, in my opinion, links to the relevant portions of Wikisource would be more useful. I agree with Radiant that the "1/3", "1/4", "1/5" ideas stink of instruction creep.  -- Dominus 17:36, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Abstain

 * 1) I'm not for inclusion just for the sake of it. A number of current articles have text in them, which I think is very unneccessary - and particularly where multiple translations are included (as has been said, the texts are available elsewhere). However, I'm not in favour of a hard and fast rule. Some short passages may benefit from the text (particularly where the details are a matter of scholarly debate) - sometimes here even multiple translations could be useful. Unfortunately, the desire of some to put the whole texts in everywhere, is leading objectors to want a rule against it - and the rule may have undesirable consequences in other articles. Perhaps no rule - but both sides moderate their editing practice. Polls are, after all, evil   --Doc (?) 18:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, obviously Jesus wept not being allowed to contain the entire verse would be ridiculous, but we are discussing whole chapters here.
 * 1) I have to concur with Doc. Having a rule isn't really the solution. You definitely run into problems when there is more than one accepted translation of a text (such as the Bible). But I think that if there is only one translation (or a translation viewed as the most authoritative), then putting in the text is okay. Again, it should be always in moderation. --K. 03:45, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Comments

 * Polls are evil. JYolkowski // talk 20:02, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Don't vote on everything. A discussion would have been useful before creating this poll. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 09:13, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * A discussion would have been useful before someone created 100+ articles for individual verses, many of them spurious, and 6+ articles about chapters, which all included the entire text of the verse/chapter.     21:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * What does this survey have to do with the existence of any article? What does this survey have to do about any article on a Bible verse? If I may quote this page, "This is a poll to determine whether articles should be allowed to contain the entire text of a whole bible chapter or not." NatusRoma 21:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If you read fully what I have written, you will note that the latter third of the sentence explains the relationship. I made no mention in that sentence of existance of articles, but of existence of the entire text of verse/chapter. Thank-you.     22:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You are correct about that, Ril, but two wrongs don't make a right. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 11:54, July 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * If this is a policy proposal (as per the notice) then it does not look well worded. Should it not have a clearly worded proposed policy, and then an invitation to vote 'for' or ‘against’? Because of its lack of clarity, I suspect t this poll will be open to a variety of interpretations. Are those voting 'remove' wanting a rule that chapter text should always be removed? Are those voting 'include' wanting a rule that chapter text should always be included? (Both sound like instruction creep.) If this is a policy proposal let it be clearly worded and a fresh vote taken. --Doc (?) 14:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a policy proposal.     18:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Invalid survey

 * 1) Please see Survey guidelines, this page is breaking a whole slew of them - SimonP July 9, 2005 18:15 (UTC)
 * Editors should note that the above user is the one with whom     is currently having an edit war over the text's presence.      9 July 2005 18:17 (UTC)
 * WP:NPA, WP:FAITH. I see no evidence of edit warring in the page history, and if you two have a problem with one another you should talk it out or take it to WP:RFC, as it is irrelevant to the discussion. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 09:13, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * Not this page, the articles listed.     20:28, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this survey's talk page or WikiProject Bible). No further edits should be made to this page.